Back in the saddle!

Thanks to a Wings' victory tonight in overtime over Buffalo, we're sitting pretty in the eighth seed, until at least tomorrow night, when current nemeses Nashville and Calgary take to the ice in their respective games.

TSO is comfortable yet slightly underwhelmed at the Wings' effort tonight. They came out for the first period, guns blazing, rattling two goals off early in the period, thanks to magic courtesy of Datsyuk and Eaves, and maintained a fast and urgent tempo until the first intermission.

The beginning of the second period left much to be desired, and though the Wings picked up the pace slightly in the second half of the period, not a whole hell of a lot occurred between then and the overtime winner by Rafalski.

A couple of quick thoughts:

1. Brian was extremely pissed at Zetterberg for failing to hustle to negate the icing called against Detroit late in the third period. I have a sinking feeling that had the outcome of the game been different, I'd probably be sleeping in the flood zone outside tonight.

2. Patrick Eaves is on fire as of late. For the most part, he played an amazing game; however, when he stuttered over and lost the puck that was right at his feet in front of Jimmy, I really considered hopping on NHL.com and purchasing a #17 jersey...and lighting it on fire. Because we weren't playing a team with the greatest offensive prowess, nothing resulted of Eaves's blunder, so all is forgiven over here at TSO. Now that we've gotten it out of our system, we'll just remember his awesomeness.

3. Pavel played a great game. We're still giddily and hopelessly in love with the top line.

And how's about one for celebrating our return to a playoff seed? Never hurts, right?

I guess tonight's just one of those nights, huh?

The Wings lost to Buffalo, 6-2.

I'm going to be honest with you; I didn't watch the game. I'm one of the oh-so-lucky DirecTV customers who are getting royally screwed every single time a Wings game is broadcast on Versus.

But that's neither here nor there.

I've watched the highlights--can we really call them that? I'd say lowlights, but that sounds like I'm going to spend the remainder of the blog discussing the players' coifs--and I'm just kinda at a loss of what to say.

I feel I have to say the requisite statement, as a Wings fan, that not every goal was Ozzie's fault. He got pulled after five goals against, so one of them was definitely not his fault, as it was on Howard's watch. (Come on, we take what we can get. Laugh a little. It was a cute joke.) From what I saw in one of the clips, Brad Stuart seemed to have his head up his ass again. What the hell is up with this guy?

More thoughts, based on what little I've seen:

--Absolutely adored the Homer redirected goal. This guy is off to a great start this season, and I couldn't be happier for him, especially because there are many people, Detroit fans included, who were ready to write him off as too over the hill and too beat up from years of abuse. Keep it coming, Homer; we need you. Badly.

--It's too bad Valtteri Filppula didn't convert on the penalty shot. The team was already trailing by four, but at least it would have been badass.

I had just typed that I was not going to look up stats because I wasn't in the mood; I was just going to type some random shit, go to bed, then look up a bunch of stuff tomorrow and write a somewhat coherent post. But I couldn't help myself. And now I wish I could undo it.

Why in holy FUCK is there not a single player on the Wings' roster with a positive +/- overall?!

The entire team combined for a -20. Yes. A negative twenty.

The best anybody did was break even.

By contrast, the Sabres' team +/- was a +20.

I guess this is to expected when you allow 6 GA in one game. But it's still gut-wrenching.

Another question worth asking: How in the hell does a team with seemingly no offensive presence score six goals against arguably the best two-way team in the league?

Bleh.

On the positive side, at least this game does not matter. It is one game of 82. The only people it genuinely matters to are Buffalo fans, sort of, because I'm sure they're psyched, and to naysayers who are always ragging on the Wings and champing at the bit to be the first to pinpoint the exact second the Wings' demise begins.

This team isn't in our division. It's not in our conference. It's 1/82 of the season. Take a deep breath. Let it go.

The Wings face Los Angeles later in the week. I'm suing the Kings. I just winked. You can't see it. (Bonus points for you if you are an Arrested Development fan AND you're reading this blog AND you're a Red Wings fan. Can the world really handle this much awesome?)

Goodnight, ladies and gents.